The document provides an overview of classicism in Greek and Roman art. It discusses how Greek artists in the 5th-4th centuries BCE established ideals of beauty that emphasized symmetry, proportion and the human form. Key Greek sculptors like Polykleitos developed canons of proportion based on the ideal human body. The Greeks also captured perfection in their representations of gods. Roman art emulated and spread these classical ideals throughout their empire.
2. Greek Classicism
Greek Civilization
“Man is the measure
of all things.”
Artists studied human beings
intensely, then distilled their
newfound knowledge to
capture in their art works the
essence of humanity
3. Greek Classicism
Greek Art
Greek artists of the fifth and fourth
centuries BCE established a
benchmark for art against which
succeeding generations of artists
and patrons in the Western world
have since measured quality.
5. The Classical Period in Greek Art
The Greeks would establish an
ideal of beauty that has
endured in the Western world
to this day
6. The Golden Ratio
Doryphoros of
Polykleitos
c. 450-440 BCE
Alexandros of Antioch
Venus de Milo
C 130 and 100 BCE
Leonardo da Vinci
Vitruvian Man
c. 1490
9. Idealism
Maxims carved on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi:
• “Man is the measure of all things.” Seek an ideal based on the human form.
• “Know thyself.” Seek the inner significance of forms
• “Nothing in excess.” Reproduce only essential forms.
11. "...beauty does not consist in the elements but
in the symmetry of the parts, the proportion of
one finger to another, of all the fingers to the
hand, of the hand to the forearm, of the
forearm to the upper arm, of all the parts to all
others as it is written in the canon of
Polykleitos.“
Galen (2AD)
Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) or Canon. Roman copy
after an original by the Greek sculptor Polykleitos
from c. 450-440 B.C.E.
12. Classical figure in motion
Myron, Diskobolos (Discus Thrower)
Zeus c. 460 BCE
13. Late Classical male sculpture
Praxiteles’ Hermes and the Infant Dionysus Lysippos’ Apoxyomenos (The Scraper)
14. Greek Female Statue Types
Berlin Kore
570-560 BCE
Peplos Kore
c. 530 BCE
Kore, from Chios
c. 520 BCE
15. Sitting and reclining poses
Three Goddesses from east pediment of the Parthenon
438-432 BCE
17. Caryatid from the Porch of the Maidens
Nike Adjusting Her Sandal
c. 427-424 BCE
18. Earliest depictions of fully nude
women in major works of art
• Appearance of the female nude
• She alludes to modesty in her pose
• Increased focus on the individual
Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Knidos c. 350 BCE
23. Roman portraiture
Verism
Head of a Roman Patrician (Head of an Old
Roman)
c. 75-50 BCE
This style is verism, a
documentary realism
(superrealistic)
24. Roman portraiture
Idealism
Augustus of Primaporta
Early 1st century CE (perhaps a copy of a
bronze statue of c. 20 BCE)
Heroic, idealized body
which is derived from the
Doryphoros of Polykleitos
Doryphoros of Polykleitos
c. 450-440 BCE
Notas del editor
Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear Bearer), 450-440 BCE.
Established a canon, or accepted criterion, of consummate male beauty achieved with a system of mathematical proportions.
"...beauty does not consist in the elements but in the symmetry of the parts, the proportion of one finger to another, of all the fingers to the hand, of the hand to the forearm, of the forearm to the upper arm, of all the parts to all others as it is written in the canon of Polykleitos.“Galen (2AD)
• Obsession with balance and harmony is expressed by each weight-bearing limb being placed in diagonal opposition to a relaxed one.
• This underscores the principle of contrapposto:
o Disposition of body parts to show movement; one part turned in opposition to the other; weight shift; one side tense and the other relaxed.
• The right side of the body has the solidity of an Ionic column, bringing stability to the energetic expression of the left.
• Doryphorus displays the transformation of body position which precedes movement, and it marks the point where the evolution of depicting motion in sculpture originates.
• He is a warrior and originally carried a spear in his left hand.
• In ancient Greece, battle was the supreme test of masculinity, yet he is not dressed in armour, for the naked body was a symbol for military might.
• His muscular, heavy body displays an internal firmness.
Myron, Diskobolos (Discus Thrower), Roman copy after the original bronze of c. 450 BCE.
• A new peak in the development of gesture and movement.
• Its intense, yet credible, motion is expressed in static terms.
• Movement is the physical expression of action, and should be vivid and immediate, but not so fleeting that it defies rational analysis.
• Patterns isolated within continual movement convey the whole nature of transition.
• This brings rhythmos, or rational order to motion.
• Myron achieves this through the composition of the Diskobolus.
• The limbs balance one another in a complex pattern of forms, with bisecting curves creating the feeling of a taut bow ready to explode.
• The pose suggests a winding and unwinding tension of the body emphasizing the probable trajectory of the discus.
• With the Diskobolus we see the physical expression of mutability, and a new significance attached to human action.
• Throughout the fifth century BCE, sculptors carefully maintained the equilibrium between simplicity and ornament that is fundamental to Greek Classical art.
• Standards established by Pheidias and Polykeitos in the mid-fifth century BCE for the ideal proportions and idealized forms had generally been accepted by the next generation of artists
• Fourth-century BCE artists, however, challenged and modified those standards.
o Developed a new canon of proportions for male figures
8 or more “heads” tall rather than the 6 1/2- or 7-head height of earlier works.
o The calm, noble detachment characteristic of earlier figures gave way to more sensitively rendered images of men and women
o Expressions of wistful introspection, dreaminess, or even fleeting anxiety.
• Kore (korai, pl.)
• More varied than the kouros
• Always clothed, poses different problem: how to relate body and drapery
• More likely to reflect changing habits and or local differences of dress
o Peplos: a draped rectangle of cloth, usually wool, folded over at the top, pinned at the shoulders, and belted to give a bloused effect
o Chiton: like the peplos, but fuller; relatively lightweight rectangle of cloth pinned along the shoulders
o Himation: cloak, draped diagonally and fastend on one shoulder; worn over chiton
• Erect, immobile, vertical pose
• Three Goddesses from east pediment of the Parthenon, 438-432 BCE
o Ease of movement
o No violence or pathos
o No specific action of any kind, only a deep felt poetry of being
o Soft fullness, enveloped in thin drapery
o “wet-drapery”
o “slip-strap”
o body both lusciously revealed and tantalizing veiled by clinging folds
Vertical fall of drapery on engaged leg resembles fluting of a column shaft: provides sense of stability
Bent leg gives an impression of relaxed grace and effortless support
Nike/ use of drapery to define anatomy and movement of the figure
appearance of the female nude
she alludes to modesty in her pose
increased focus on the individual
Our word “architecture” comes from the Greek architecton, which means “master carpenter.”
Early Greek architecture therefore employed wood, not stone.
These early structures, as well as those of mud-brick, have not survived.
By the 6th Century BCE, stone replaced wood in the construction of important temples.
Temple type
• Post and lintel construction
• Based on three orders which dictate a basic plan
o Doric, Ionic and Corinthian (a variant of the Ionic order)
• Built by the Greeks after the Persians sacked Athens in 480 BCE and destroyed the existing temple and its sculpture.
• Dedicated to the virgin goddess Athena, the patron deity in whose honor Athens was named
• Made of gleaming white marble